Manners - are they changing?

optimistic-mummy

andygb wrote: »

I reckon that 90% of people do not know what manners are.
How many "yummy mummys" can keep their children under control, stop them blocking pavements, stop the running riot in shops, stop them barging into people, make them apologise when they are wrong, do not give dirty looks to people going about their daily business, as if your daily tasks are more important.
Have a bit of consideration for other people.

i dont know what you mean by 'yummy mummys' im 20 with a nearly 4 year old and although he is still young, he knows what is expected of him, he's never 'showed me up' when we have been out, we all sit at the table for a meal and he knows to use his cutlery say please and thank-you no one eats until everyones food is served . no one gets down from the table until everyone is finished unless you are excused. no desert if you don't eat your meal, he knows he is to say sorry when he has done wrong, hold the door for someone waiting, (he isn't quiet old enough to hold the door but i have taught him to wait by me until the person has gone through the door), ladies first (again he waits until the 'lady' has passed him), help others especially the elderly or disabled (just the other day he carried some milk for an 'older lady' in the shop to the counter for her.... he wasn't asked he just did it) if we are walking and someone is trying to get passed he knows to move out of the way, he acknowledges everyone he see's round the village and always says morning/afternoon sir/mam, how are you, he knows to respect his elders and has been taught to call everyone except family members by sir and mam a man is a gentleman and a women is a lady. i may be strict when it comes to manners and respect but i firmly believe it should be taught from young ... manners don't cost a thing ,... when i fell pregnant with my LO although it wasn't planned i was determined to bring him up exactly how i would if i was 30/40 ... i didn't want to be the stereotypical teenage parent and i didn't want him to be the typical teenage parents child IYKWIM .... im proud of who he is and proud to say even though hes not even quiet 4 yet (3 months off) i don't even have to prompt him anymore to say please, thank you,sorry, pardon or excuse me x

flutterbyuk25

fannyadams wrote: »

my pet peeve is the lads with their trousers mid thigh and their pants on show :mad:
I usually shout "Moon, I win" (don't ask):rotfl:

You wouldn't want my job then! I get to see plenty of teenaged boys pants on a daily basis (sounds dodgy! :rotfl:) :mad: I do tell them off all the time, as do the teenage girls I work with, so I don't get why they still do it. The worst bit is when they've worn the same pair of pants all week :eek: although I do find pointing this out to them, infront of the girls, does have a positive effect of embarrasing them and they improve slightly :rotfl:

mishmogs

Having lived in southern India, it is the norm to use your right hand to eat with and when you eat out at a 'locals' eatery or in a locals house then using the hand is obligatory, as you use rice or bread to 'mop' up with.

Whilst travelling around China some years ago, you soon learn to bring the bowl nearer the mouth and the art of chopstick use to feed yourself. (I lost a fair bit of weight as I found it difficult to eat this way!!).

What really annoys me is when you hold the door open for someone and they sail straight through and ignore you. Or you open the door to go through yourself and you get pushed back from whence you came from! Don't get that one.

We eat at the breakfast room table most nights and enjoy a chat on whats happened through the day. Good etique on cutlery use is the norm and we too, use napkins. We have a German student staying with us and his manners are impecable so it has been good to have to bring ours back in line with his!

I too have given previous boyfriends the boot for not having decent manners. My DH walks on the outside of the pavement to me, will hold the door open for you, even car doors when its not raining.

I was brought up to always offer tea/coffee/biscuits/cake to visitors and squash to little uns. Even now, I have a supply of goodies in for when visitors turn up. If anyone turns up and its near dinner time, then they are also offered part of the meal, it just means we have more vegetables and gravy and the meat is spread out further and as I always have homemade soup in the fridge, the meal is started with that as a way of filling everyone up.

No shouting in the street e.g. calling my DH when he has wondered off which is the norm but there is no point in shouting him as he is 90% deaf! As others, no eating in the street.

I could go on.....

spike7451

I think fast food has a lot to do with the decline of table manners..Think about it.

Years ago you used to get a wooden fork with your fish & chips,now you rarely do & fish & chips is now not as popular as it was a few years ago.But look at what resturants are popular;

McDonalds
Burger King
KFC
Domino's
Pizza Hut

To eat at any of them you only require a spoon to stir the coffee or eat the deserts.How many of us can recall using a knife & fork when eating one of these?...I can't mind you I'd rather make my own burger n chips.

So say that some families eat take out a few times a week,children are learning how to eat with their hands much like stone age man,and often eat in front of the TV.

lostinrates

While I agree with most of those listed above I was taught that the true test of good manners was the to.erance of other people's lack of them. Unless a teacher, a parent or perhaps a very, very close friend I would not correct any poor manners.

With regard to opening doors, my husband's work place have annual political correctness meetings where they try and ban this sort of thing, as apparantly some peoe are offended. Similarly some people who have corrected dh and I are acknowledge gracefully but 'tradition' and more importantly what we feel is courteous to each other is not always what people think it is. I would not be so crass as to correct someone for correcting us, but neither would I necessarily change, but to try and remember how they prefer things done for them.

Fwiw, as well as no eating in the street, things that are considered unacceptable in my family include some usuage of words....pardon, for example, or toilet. I am not in the least bit put out by the use of the word toilet, it's widely understood, but funnily enough I know I would have taught a child I had to say something else (any thing else, really, loo, lavatory, anything straightforward). When I was a child we moved a lot and were often in circles where etiquette and manners were different and considered differently by different people. Remembering to use 'bathroom' in the states or aces where the states influenced more than Uk in english language circles but never to use it UK was something that made me giggle as a kid.

Ultimately, the most important thing is to be thoughtful towards others and cause as least offence as possible. The old 'rules' help. Eating in the street is sometimes messy, causes more washing, and also, in times and places where food was less plentiful , would cause discomfort to those who could treat food and their clothes less casually. Plus possibly make one a target for crime' even if it's just having a sandwich pinched! Still, I would rather people ate in the street and disposed of litter correctly than a plethora of other things people do, to many to list and get orate about!

I will never, ever get used to people carrying on a conversation while texting (I turn my phone off when I can, check who it's from if I cannot, and if it's a truely necessary call, apologise and ask if the other person minds if I take the call).

I also wear sunglasses when talking to people, (for medical reasons now) but remove or lift them when being introduced or greeting, then ask for forgiveness for putting them back on.

lostinrates

spike7451 wrote: »

I think fast food has a lot to do with the decline of table manners..Think about it.

Years ago you used to get a wooden fork with your fish & chips,now you rarely do & fish & chips is now not as popular as it was a few years ago.But look at what resturants are popular;

McDonalds
Burger King
KFC
Domino's
Pizza Hut

To eat at any of them you only require a spoon to stir the coffee or eat the deserts.How many of us can recall using a knife & fork when eating one of these?...I can't mind you I'd rather make my own burger n chips.

So say that some families eat take out a few times a week,children are learning how to eat with their hands much like stone age man,and often eat in front of the TV.

Just like to say Italians would not dream of eating pizza with their fingers. It would be considered a 'brutta figura'. But most tolerate their tourist friends and foreign work mates making such errors graciously.

Where as, is nt the history of the pasty one where we ate it with our hands whilst toiling?

spike7451

lostinrates wrote: »

Just like to say Italians would not dream of eating pizza with their fingers. It would be considered a 'bruta figura'. But most tolerate their tourist friends and foreign work mates making such errors graciously.

Where as, is nt the history of the pasty one where we ate it with our hands whilst toiling?

Aye,the miners used to take a pasty with savory at one end & sweet at the other down the pit,then throw away the crust bit where they'd held it iirc.

calicocat

LOSTRINATES.......I am really curious as I have no real idea why some are/arent acceptable as simply the way I was brought up. In my family using the word lav,loo..etc was deemed as wrong , I had to use the word toilet as a child. What in your world ( I don't know where you come from not being sarcastic) meant that the word toilet was wrong?

To be honest this whole subject is both subjective and objective amongst many other cultural differences.

scottishminnie

I feel so much better now I know there are like minded people around. I'm just over 40 and sometimes feel like an antique with regards my expectation of manners.

The ones I cannot stop myself from commenting on/tutting about:

Eating with mouth open
Starting meals before everyone has their food
Littering - I reach boiling point on an almost daily basis on this one
Children interrupting conversations and parents stopping conversations to pander to said child
Underwear on show
See through leggings - why bother at all
Slippers worn outside unless there is a medical reason for it
Women going to work with soaking wet hair - can't they get out of bed 10 minutes earlier??
People smoking in the street and blowing their disgusting smoke in the direction of everyone else



The ones my mother insisted on and I guess are old fashioned now but I still abide with:

Tilting a soup bowl away from me to spoon up the remains
Difference between soup and dessert spoons
Difference between butter knife and normal knife
Side plates - don't care if they aren't used but they will be on the table just in case
Drinking out of a glass bottle - I can drink from a can but not a bottle
Using soup plates for anything other than soup
Containers on the dinner table - sauce, mustard, lurpak spreadable - if it's on the table it's in a dish


Goodness knows how many other pet peeves I have but I'll stop, I'm beginning to sound like Victor Meldrew:o

BitterAndTwisted

The word "lavatory" itself is a euphemism, so it could entertain a person to insist on that word rather than "toilet" but there we are.

The distinctions between certain words being acceptable or not are purely based on class. Therefore working-class folks said "toilet" and the middle and uppers "lavatory". The same with "serviettes" and "napkins". There are hundreds and hundreds of them and all developed as an way way of being able to easily identify those who do not belong. Nancy Mitford (I think) wrote a whole book about these demon words entitled "U or Non-U" a very long time ago. It makes for rather interesting reading.

As to manners changing: no, I don't think they are. Or rather they already have changed, and not necessary for the better. There are things which would have mortified my mother and no-one appears to care that they're no longer important. We're all working-class people but at least we knew how to behave and not bring shame on ourselves and those around us. Some of the many things was not eating, smoking or being seen combing your hair in public. Few seem to care about them now. I still do but I'm a wizened old hag now, so perhaps I'm the one out of kilter who has antiquated and outmoded attitudes. If I am, I just don't care!

I have a couple of really lovely, charming and adorably kind friends who shamingly don't notice that they both lick their knives at table and no-one else has ever done it. When eating bread in a restaurant one of them cuts it and then holds it in the palm of her hand and butters it like that. I honestly wonder sometimes why they imagine there's a side-plate on the table.....